It's a What?
by GryffindorCriss
Summary: They've faced discrimination, mad tourists and crazy red-haired family members - but this is quite a difficult issue indeed. A somewhat humorous (I hope) collection showing how our favourite love birds deal with the prospect of new arrivals.
1. Baby Makes Three

Discoveries of the Unexpected Kind

The February sky had finally started to darken for the evening, moonlight casting shadows on Hotel Transylvania and those who currently resided inside of it. A few monsters started to stir as the first rays of moonlight shone through their windows, starting to come out of deep, peaceful sleeps that came with such great accommodation and safety from humans.

One of these monsters was Johnny; the red-head made a snuffled yawning noise as he slowly drifted out of sleep and into consciousness, reaching out an arm to wrap around his wife as if to pull her closer. Mavis made a small, sleepy noise of contentment, happily nuzzling closer to her husband.

The couple were visiting the hotel for the week, taking a short break from their travels again so that they could spend some time with Mavis' Aunts and Uncles while they were staying; neither of them minded being back at the hotel that much, especially since it had become like a second home to them.

"Good evening," She mumbled, not even opening her eyes.

"Good evening," Johnny breathed back as he opened his eyes, nuzzling their noses together and making his wife smile slightly. "Mmm...is it just me, or do you look beautiful this evening?"

Mavis giggled quietly, rolling her eyes. "I've only just woken up."

"Yeah, but you look better than I probably do," Johnny said goofily, leaning closer and giving her a kiss.

It's not as if they were newly-weds or anything - no, they'd been married for three years now, and an intimate relationship was hardly foreign either. But that was the great thing about being zings; the love was just always there, even if you were mad at the person.

Just as the kiss started to get much more interesting, Johnny rolling on top of his wife and kissing his way down her neck, Mavis felt it - her stomach lurched, and she immediately felt nauseous. She let out a small gasp, quickly shoving the red-head off of her and zooming to the bathroom with her hand over her mouth.

Johnny, quite perplexed, simply stared at the spot where she'd been a moment ago. The sound of retching brought him out of his thoughts. "Mavis?" He called, alarmed, and quickly got off the bed to go to the bathroom. "Are you okay?" When he got to the door, he tried pushing it open - it was locked and wouldn't budge.

"I-I'm fine!" He heard Mavis say weakly; seconds later, he heard more vomit hit the toilet bowl.

"You're ill," Johnny argued, eyes wide. "Look, can you just open the door so I can come and look after you? Maybe hold your hair back or something?"

Pressing his ear up to the wood of the door, he listened for any kind of movement from inside: there was a little more retching, and when that stopped he heard a couple of sniffles. This was quickly followed by some shuffling noises, the toilet flushing, and then the door finally being unlocked and opened.

When he'd pulled his head back and looked at his wife properly, it was clear she wasn't quite okay; Mavis had gone paler than usual, her eyes puffy from having to puke so much, and she just looked _sick_.

"I'm fine," She muttered quickly when she saw his face, pushing past him to get back to bed. "I just...I'm fine."

"Fine? You threw up," Johnny pointed out, turning to look at her properly.

Mavis sighed, lying down on the coffin bed again and wrapping the duvet around herself. "I'm fine," She insisted tiredly, looking up at him with exhausted blue eyes. "I think I just need to sleep a little more..." She blinked up at him hopefully. "Stay with me?"

Johnny had no choice - as hungry as he was, and as much as he wanted to continue their previous make-out session, he also wanted to make sure Mavis was completely okay. After all, he'd never seen her sick before...Hell, he didn't even know that vampires _could_ get sick.

Honestly? He was kinda worried.

* * *

Throughout the next few nights, Mavis' behaviour continued to become stranger and stranger; on some mornings, she'd wake up and end up running for the bathroom to hurl before returning to bed. It only got stranger after that too - she'd either spend the rest of the day in their bedroom, tired and rundown, or wake up after a brief nap and suddenly feel ravenous for some food.

"Hey, I thought you didn't like mouse omelettes," Johnny stated, frowning slightly out of confusion as he sat down next to her with his own breakfast. "You said that they're gross and too chewy."

Mavis just shrugged, putting another forkful into her mouth. "I saw it and wanted some...it's not that bad actually."

Johnny didn't bother telling Dracula about these strange habits - the older vampire would immediately panic and start to over-worry himself if he thought his 'Mavy-Wavy' was hurt or ill in some way, and that was definitely not something that Johnny or Mavis wanted.

On the fourth morning that Mavis had raced out of bed to puke, though, Johnny knew that some kind of action had to take place.

"Don't any doctors work here or anything?" Johnny asked once Mavis had settled back into bed. She was seemingly okay now, since she was sitting up and watching him curiously. "I mean, surely there's _someone_ we could ask about this?"

"But I'm fine," Mavis told him for the umpteenth time that week. "I'm actually kind of hungry..."

The red-head blinked. "Yeah, but...you just threw up...like..." He sighed, running a hand through his unruly hair. "Look, Mavy, I'm just...worried. You're acting really weird lately, and-"

"Weird?" Mavis asked, raising an eyebrow and looking quite hurt. "What do you mean 'weird'?"

"Throwing up and then eating, like, tons of food!" The red-haired vampire pointed out desperately. "I mean, yesterday you had, like, three helpings of wormcakes for breakfast!"

This was clearly the wrong thing to point out because Mavis started to glare at him in an offended way. "Are you saying that I'm eating too much? That I'm fat or something?"

"What?! No!" Johnny answered hurriedly, eyes widening. "I meant...I mean..."

Mavis stood up, shaking her head in contempt. "Great. Thanks, Johnny - I'm getting too fat for you now!"

"Of course not! I just...I...uhh...I never said that!"

The result of this had been her storming downstairs to go and get some breakfast by herself; it was only when she got to the bar that she realized she'd over-reacted just a touch.

_I'm going to apologize to him when I go back upstairs,_ she thought sadly, suddenly feeling awful that she'd stormed out on her husband like that. _He was only trying to help me...even if he was being annoying about it._

"Are you alright?" She heard a familiar voice to her right say, and she turned her head to look at her Auntie Wanda. "You look sad, sweetie."

"Yeah," She let out, grabbing a plate and shovelling a couple of wormcakes onto it. "I'm fine." _I seem to be saying a lot of that lately._..

Wanda gave her a small pat on the shoulder. "It's just that you haven't been yourself lately, and we're all quite worried about you."

As the two walked over to a table to sit down, Mavis just sighed and looked down at her plate. "I guess I'm just tired...it's really weird, because no matter how much I sleep I just feel _exhausted_."

Wanda gave a small chuckle. "I know what you mean," She agreed, sitting down next to the vampire and rubbing her currently flat stomach in circles. "Every time I've had a litter of pups the energy's just disappeared..."

Mavis just nodded as she listened, putting some wormcake into her mouth. She already knew quite a lot about when her Aunt had been pregnant with pups, having seen it for herself dozens of times.

"...Oh, and then there was the night sickness and cravings..."

Mavis paused in putting some food into her mouth and slowly lifted her head to look at her Aunt. "Huh?"

"The night sickness and cravings," Wanda repeated, reaching up with one hand to scratch her ear. "I used to get so sick in the evening...it only lasted a few weeks or so, but it was still unpleasant to experience. The cravings were okay...although, with the first few litters I went completely off of bacon..."

_Night sickness when waking up: check._

_Exhausted: check._

_Unusual cravings: check._

"Are you okay, Mavis?" Wanda asked, concerned. "You've stopped eating."

_I can't be. No. I'm not. _"I'm fine," Mavis said lightly, staring ahead into space as her brain went crazy. "I'm just...thinking."

_Dad once said moodiness and mood swings were a sign of pregnancy - he said that about my Mom, when she was having me. I haven't been that moody, have I?_ The fight she'd had with Johnny that morning reappeared in her mind, and she suddenly felt rather ill again.

"I'm not that hungry," The vampire managed, suddenly standing up. She looked at her Aunt apologetically, fidgeting on the spot slightly. "I'll see you later, Auntie Wanda. I think I need to go lay down."

* * *

"Getting hotter...hotter...colder but still warm..."

Johnny gave a small "ahh!" as he tripped and nearly landed head-first in the pool water; he regained his balance at the last minute and stretched his arms out again. "Where are you?"

"Warmer...hotter..." Winnie continued sweetly from her position on the poolside. "Hotter..."

Johnny took a few more steps forwards and finally managed to find what he wanted; he grinned as his hands grazed against Winnie's fur. "Got ya! Now, can I take my blindfold off?"

"Uh-huh!"

Johnny untied the knot and grinned at the werewolf pup. "So, now what?"

Winnie shrugged, playing with her binkie in her hands. "I could try and find you?"

"Yeah," Johnny agreed thoughtfully before shaking his head when he remembered something. "Wait, no - you'd cheat and use your nose!"

She gave a small, wolfish smile. "When's Mavis coming down? Is she still ill?"

The red-head shrugged. "I dunno. Last time I saw her she wanted to get some rest..."

"Oh," Winnie said, looking kind of disappointed. "She said that the next time she was here she'd do my fur for me."

Not wanting her to be too upset, Johnny quickly intervened. "Well, I could always go upstairs and see how she's doing...I mean, she might be feeling better now." He hoisted himself out of the pool and grabbed a towel from a nearby deck chair so that he could dry himself off - something told him that Dracula wouldn't like it if he dripped on the hotel's clean floors. "How about you get a bite to eat, and I'll check on Mavy?"

Winnie nodded as she stood up, giving him a small smile before sticking her binkie in her mouth and heading towards the buffet table.

_Aww...she's a cute kid,_ Johnny thought to himself, also standing up and heading to go inside. He hoped his wife was feeling better, because she really was missing out on some fun stuff lately - that, and he was concerned for her well-being of course.

_It's nothing,_ He told himself optimistically as he headed for the elevators. _Probably just a passing sickness. It's gonna go away soon._

* * *

_I'm not. I can't be, so I'm not. _

She splayed her fingers out against her stomach, as if a bulge would suddenly appear.

_Besides, we're so young...we've got hundreds and hundreds of years to go. We have all of these places to travel, things to see._

Mavis bit her lip softly as she thought, wondering what she was meant to do; it would probably be best to tell Johnny, considering that it was kind of his fault she was now stuck in this situation. But, thinking on it, she just couldn't do it - not yet...it was too soon, and she didn't want to freak him out or anything.

It wasn't as if neither of them wanted kids - no, of course they had, what with Johnny being from a large family and Mavis just wanting a family in general after being raised by her father single-handedly for years, but this...it was _too_ soon.

For one thing, they'd only been married for three years - sure, it seemed long at the moment but her parents had been together for far longer before she was expected... Again, how were they meant to continue their travels with a baby?! A tiny, defenceless baby that needed caring and nurturing at all times. It was a huge commitment, and not one that Mavis was not quite sure about just yet.

It wasn't as if she was worried about not loving the baby or anything - she was sure she would once she wrapped her head around the whole idea - but rather that...well... What if she was a bad mother? She didn't know anything about raising a baby, for God's sake! Playing with kids for an hour or so - sure, that was fine. But having her own baby and being in charge of it?

That was too scary for Mavis to think about.

The door to the hotel room opened, and she jolted up on the bed just as Johnny walked into the room. _Ah no... What am I meant to say?_

"Hey," Johnny greeted, sending her a grin. He had a towel around his shoulders, and it was obvious by the damp spots on his bathing suit that he'd been outside in the pool. "So, how you feeling, Mavy?"

"..I'm Fine," Mavis managed, hoping that he'd believe her.

But, being married for three years, of course he would know when something was up. "Nah, you're not," Johnny disagreed, grin fading as he sat down on the bed next to her. "You look really sad, Mavis. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," She lied through her teeth immediately. "I'm just...well...tired."

Johnny didn't look convinced and raised an eyebrow at her worriedly. "You've been saying that for days...and then you've been getting sick. Something's not right, okay? I can feel that it's not." When she didn't say anything, he put one hand on hers and gave her a serious look. "You can tell me anything, Mavis. We're zings."

The serious look was enough to show Mavis that he was worried - he only ever had that expression if he was _really_ panicking about something (usually related to someone that he loved).

She knew that he had a point, and it tumbled out before she could stop herself.

"I think that I'm pregnant."

For years to come, Mavis would wish that she had a camera or something to capture his facial expression - it was something that would never fail to amuse her when she thought back on it. Then, however, she didn't have the time to find his reaction funny because of how nervous she was.

Johnny's eyes widened and his mouth dropped so widely open that it practically hit the floor. "A _baby_?! Like...a _baby_?" Mavis sent him a look, and he tried to close his mouth. "Wait, so...you _might_ be pregnant? Not definitely?"

"Not definitely, no," Mavis agreed unsurely. "I mean, there's got to be some other reason why I'm throwing up and getting cravings and...all of that...I mean, I took some tests just in case, and they all were positive but...hey, they might be faulty, right?"

There was a moment where neither of them spoke, and they just looked at each other - in that moment, they both seemed to realize that the possibility of it being due to pregnancy was more and more certain.

Johnny blinked, as if confused for a moment - and then he slowly begun to grin. "Awesome."

"It's not awesome!" Mavis snapped testily, suddenly angry. "We're having a baby for crying out loud! Holy rabies...a baby..." She stood and started to pace anxiously. "Holy rabies, it's a baby...I can't do this, it's too much!"

"You can't?" Johnny asked, looking rather crestfallen. "But I thought that...you know, we were going to have kids-"

"Not now!" She gritted out, shaking her head. "When we're older and like my Dad, then yes - but not now! What are we gonna do?"

The red-head sat down on the bed, looking into the air in front of him thoughtfully. "A baby - you know, that's not usually taken as bad news, Mavis, bringing a new life into the world...heh, it actually sounds kinda cool when you think about it."

Mavis stopped pacing to stare at him long and hard. "You can't be serious," She muttered in disbelief. "Johnny, we've been married for three years! I'm only a hundred and twenty-six, I can't be a Mom!" She flopped onto the bed and buried her face in her hands. "I can't do this...I just can't..."

"But this is a good thing," Johnny tried to assure her weakly. "I'm not mad or anything if that helps - heck, I think that it's pretty great!" Here, he gave a goofy smile. "We're gonna be parents: that's gonna be epic!"

But Mavis didn't seem to think so; instead, she just continued to fret anxiously. "We can't do this, Johnny, we just _can't:_ we have so much to do, a-a-and I just..." She took a deep breath and turned away from him. "I can't deal with this..."

Johnny bit his lip and sighed before standing up - Mavis clearly needed some time to get her head around the idea, and he himself had a lot of thinking on his part to do now (after all, in less than nine months he was going to be a Dad- and, crap, did that scare him!) so he made his way to the door. "I'm gonna just...let you breathe," He muttered quietly, hand resting on the door knob. "Uhh...if you want, I'll be by the pool again."

* * *

The sun was nearly due to come up, and yet Mavis didn't move from her position by the window of her bedroom, looking out at the brightening sky with worried eyes. From behind her she heard the door open and shut, and then the sound of sneakers pattering across the carpet. "Uhh...Mavis? Maybe you should move."

She didn't respond, instead training her eyes on the forest surrounding the castle.

She heard her husband sigh slightly. "Look, I really don't see how-"

"Just leave it," Mavis muttered, finally shutting the curtains to the window and moving to sit down on the bed. "It doesn't matter."

"Exactly," Johnny agreed, sitting down opposite her and grabbing her hands clumsily. "I mean, lots of couples have kids; look at my parents! They had seven of us!" There was a long silence between them; Johnny's smile slipped from his face. "You don't want kids, is that what you're saying?"

"No, of course not!" Mavis answered somewhat tearfully, lifting her head up to look at him properly. "I just...it's too soon. We still had so many places to visit - I wanted to go to Hawaii again..."

"And we will go," Johnny assured her quickly, really not wanting her to start crying. "We'll just take a little break, just until...until _they_ don't need us anymore." At the word 'they' he couldn't help but look down and gesture at Mavis' still-flat stomach. On instinct she covered it by folding her arms over it and hunching over. The red-head couldn't help but feel slightly disheartened by her reaction. "Alright, fine. I guess it's a lot to take in."

Mavis just gave a tiny nod. "I'm...scared. I know it sounds weird, but I just...I don't want to ruin things."

"Ruin what?" Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mavis hesitated for a moment; and then she remembered that Johnny was her zing. She could tell him anything and he wouldn't judge. "Us. I mean, I love you a lot and I know you love me too, but a baby is...a big thing." She looked down so she didn't have to meet his gaze. "Having a baby would change everything, Johnny; we wouldn't have time to just be us, to be together like we are now. We'd be tired all the time, and we won't have time for each other...look at how tired Wayne looks all the time." She looked back up at him, studying his face for a reaction. "Don't get me wrong; I really wanted us to have kids...but just not yet."

The two vampires sat in silence for a moment, unsure what else to say. Finally Johnny straightened up and said, "You know what? I'm scared too. I mean, I've had enough experience with babies to know that they're difficult work to take care of." He gently squeezed her hand tighter, causing her to look up at him. "But I think we'll be alright. It's just another step forward, right?"

Mavis gave an unsure nod, not completely convinced yet. "Yeah. I guess so."

"And, Mavis," He smiled at her brightly, gazing at her lovingly. "Trust me. Having a baby is going to strengthen our relationship; we're gonna need to help each other out, right?"

Mavis just gave him a tiny, curious smile. "So...You're excited? Not upset or anything?"

Johnny snorted. "Are you kidding me? I grew up with six brothers - a family is something I kinda want." Mavis leaned forwards and pressed her lips to his in relief, wrapping her arms around him. He grinned into the kiss, hugging her back.

When they pulled away, however, Johnny's smile slipped of his face quickly, leaving the other vampire confused. "Johnny? Are you alright?"

"Your dad is gonna kill me," He muttered, eyes going wide with fright.

Mavis rolled her eyes slightly at this. "I don't see why; I'm not one hundred and eighteen anymore - I mean, I'm a fully grown vampire and I'm married!" This didn't seem to reassure him, so she tried a different tactic. "I - personally - think that he'd be happy; he loves kids, and he's good with them. And I'm pretty sure he'd like an excuse to throw a party for me again - he hasn't done it in a while."

Johnny, finally gaining some composure back, nodded hopefully. "Yeah, I suppose you're right..." He gave her another grin, a sparkle in his hazel eyes. "We're having a baby."

"Yeah," Mavis said, smirking a little. "Unless all five tests I took were wrong, then we're having a baby."

"Awesome," Johnny muttered, ducking down to kiss her again. "Just checking."

**The last section of this chapter can be found in Chapter Three of A-Z of a Life (another one of my HT stories). I really need to stop writing these, I really do...**

**Anyway, these will probably be more focused on Johnny/Mavis than my previous stories (and if it's not then you have my permission to flame me with bad messages until I do write more Johnny/Mavis)**

**Please leave reviews if you can!**


	2. Telling Dracula

Telling Dracula

"Your dad is gonna kill me."

"Johnny, I think that you're over-exaggerating-"

"Have you not seen him, Mavy?! He threatened to suck my blood out before our wedding; what the heck's he gonna do when he hears that we're having a baby?!"

Mavis just leaned against the wardrobe, arms folded and looking amused. "We've been over this before, Johnny: he likes kids, and he'll be happy to hear that he's gonna be a Grandpa...oh, wow, that makes him sound so old!"

"Yeah, and that'll just make him angry!" Johnny insisted anxiously. "Look, it's like in the movies: the dad finds out that this handsome dude got his beautiful daughter pregnant and - BOOM! He gets killed!"

The dark-haired vampiress bit her lip to stop herself from laughing: she may not have grown up with an in-depth knowledge of movies but even she could tell that this was over-exaggerating quite a lot.

"Why are you laughing, Mavis? It's not funny!" He gave a gulp. "He's gonna hate me - marrying his daughter is one thing, but..but getting her pregnant... Oh man, I'm screwed!"

"My dad won't kill you," She repeated, shaking her head again at how silly he was being. "For one thing, it's not like _I'm_ a baby anymore, so he can't exactly tell me what I can and can't do. Secondly, the fact that we're married will make it better to him-"

"Woah, really?" Johnny asked, looking surprised. "Huh."

"He's very much into the old-fashioned 'wholesome happy family' idea," Mavis agreed. "Third, even if he _did_ try anything - which he won't - then I'll be there; if I get in the way, he'll stop in case he hurts me. Johnny, I know my dad: he _loves_ kids of all kinds. Just look at how he is with Winnie-"

"But not the other pups," Johnny pointed out.

She rolled her eyes slightly. "Well, he's not as fond of the others because they're nothing but trouble and mess up the lobby: that's just how male pups are. But I'm pretty sure that most other babies aren't as extreme as them - he'll love this one...I mean, it's his grandchild for crying out loud!"

The red-head seemed to think it over for a few seconds before nodding. "Alright. Sure...and I guess we can't really keep it a secret from him forever, right?"

"Well, me getting bigger and then a baby popping out would be a give-away, yeah," Mavis said wryly. "So the sooner we tell him the better."

Johnny nodded in agreement - it wouldn't be too soon, and so he could relax for the time being.

* * *

"TONIGHT?!"

Okay, maybe it had been sooner than he thought it would.

"I thought that we agreed to tell him as soon as possible," Mavis told him in a somewhat confused way. "That way we could give him time to get used to the idea before it happens."

"Yeah, but this is...it's too soon!" Johnny tried to convince her, looking absolutely crazy. "Mavy, I only found out _two nights ago_ about this baby - _our _baby! _I_ still need to get used to the idea, let alone telling _him_ - Count Dracula, in case you forgot!" _Oh man, that sounds even worse than just, 'telling my father-in-law' - Count Dracula. _

_Dude, if I live to see another night after this then I'll be the luckiest idiot in the world._

"Dad will be fine with it," Mavis said for what felt like the hundredth time. "We went over this yesterday: it's his grandchild, I'm his daughter and he likes kids. The worst he'll do is maybe faint or something - but he won't attempt to kill you. Besides, I won't let him."

Johnny, despite being terrified, gave a small grin. "Aw, thanks Mavy. I love you too."

"Oh no, it's not to do with that," Mavis scoffed, shaking her head. "For one thing, I know Dad would be mortified if the baby grew up without a father being in the picture. Second, it's all your fault for getting me pregnant, so if you think that by letting Dad kill you then you won't have to do anything for me or the baby, then you've got another thing coming!"

* * *

While Dracula did love his hotel, not all of the work was fun to do; for example, paperwork was one of the more boring tasks he had to complete. It was even more difficult when guests and friends kept on knocking on his office door and interrupting him.

He sighed as he shut the door behind him; a skeleton guest had been complaining about their room, and he'd had to sort it out for them. He wanted nothing more than to sit down, even if it was to do some stupid paperwork...

Just as he sat down in his chair, however, to finish off the papers, there was a loud knock on the door.

"What?" He shouted, quite annoyed now. "I am trying to work! If you have a problem, please see one of the zombies down-"

"Dad, it's me!"

Dracula knew that voice anywhere. He straightened up, irritated scowl disappearing entirely; moving quickly, he race back to the door and flung it open. His daughter was standing there, smiling at him happily, with Johnny stood next to her looking quite nervous about something. "Mavy!" He exclaimed, clearly pleased to see his daughter. "I'm sorry, my little bat, I didn't realize it was you! Come in!"

The couple entered Dracula's office, and as he turned around he swore he saw them shooting nervous looks at each other.

"What can I do for you two?" Dracula asked, shutting the door behind them and moving to stand in front of them so he could watch them both eagerly. "Is everything alright?"

"Of course," Mavis said quickly, not wanting him to panic too much. "No, it's just that...that Johnny and I have some news that we want to share with you." At this, she smiled at her husband and wrapped an arm around his waist; he smiled back nervously before looking at the older vampire.

Dracula's welcoming smile disappeared. "It's not bad news, is it?"

"No! It's actually pretty good news," Johnny answered, grinning slightly as he remembered what they were about to tell. Then he remembered that this _was_ Count Dracula that he was talking to, and that it _was_ his wife's father who could rip him to pieces.

"Well, what is it?" Dracula questioned, somewhat impatiently. After all, he didn't have all night to stand around, even if it was to talk to his precious Mavy-Wavy.

Mavis smiled radiantly, baring her fangs at her father. "Well, we're having a baby."

"You're gonna be a Grandpa, Drac!" Johnny added in case he didn't get the message.

Dracula froze on the spot, blue eyes widening with shock. "A...a baby?" He repeated, eyes trained on his daughter entirely. "You?"

She rolled her eyes slightly. "Well, duh!"

The famous vampire blinked and slowly lifted his finger to point at his son-in-law. "And you? It is your baby?"

"Well, I hope it is," Johnny laughed, nerves getting the better of him once again. "'Cause that'd be weird to explain."

"Aren't you excited?" Mavis asked, sounding slightly disappointed at her father's lack of enthusiasm.

Dracula's eyes snapped to her as he regained his thoughts and straightened up on the spot. "Of course, Mavy!" He agreed quickly, flashing her a quick smile. "I'm just...surprised, especially since you two are so...so young. You've only been married three years, after all!"

"Yeah, well, it was a bit of a surprise," Johnny admitted, and Dracula glared at him slightly. "I mean, we're both excited! Definitely!"

"Look, Dad," Mavis started, drawing her father's attention back to her. "What he means is that we know we're both young and at first it was...a bit of a shock. But after we thought about it, we just...we can't wait!" She smiled at him hopefully. "Are _you_ happy?"

The Count thought about it hard and started to shift through all of his feelings. It wasn't that he wasn't happy, it was just...thinking about how grown up his daughter was, now having her own children, made him feel quite old for a start, and emotional at how much she'd grown up over the years. Oh, he couldn't help but glare at Johnny even more - after all, for his daughter to get pregnant...

"I totally think he's gonna rip me apart," Johnny whispered in a not-very-quiet-at-all whisper.

Dracula cleared his throat, trying to rid all unpleasant thoughts about how this child came to be out of his head. "No," He lied, not even trying to hide the fact he wasn't being exactly truthful. "The thought, it never occurred."

"So, you're happy?" Mavis checked, raising an eyebrow.

At the hopeful looks on both of the younger vampires' faces, he had no choice but to give in and smile. "Of course, my little ghoul! A baby...that is...wow." He started to imagine after this child would be born; reading them bedtime stories, chasing them while they giggled around the corridors loudly, singing to them and making them laugh... "But you will let me help, right?"

Mavis laughed, throwing her arms around him joyfully and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug. "Of course you can help, Dad!"

Johnny grinned at his father-in-law and nodded in agreement. "By the way, dude, you're gonna make an awesome Grandpa!"

Although Dracula wasn't quite sure he liked being called an 'awesome Grandpa', he knew it to mean a compliment and gave a small smile to the former human. "Thank You, Johnny."

Even if Johnny _had_ gotten his daughter pregnant, he supposed that he wasn't all that bad; now he had another little child in his life to help look after, to teach new things to. Yes, he decided, hugging his daughter back and smiling even more: he was positively ecstatic to have another little bat in his life.

**I would like to apologize for my lack of updates - I owe you all an explanation (this will be posted on all of my other stories when I get around to updating them too):**

**For those who don't know, I suffer from (what I perceive to be severe) depression and self-harm. It's been a very stressful time lately for me: trying to find a job to keep my dad happy, having a lack of sleep, worrying about my results, worrying about dance, worrying about college, wanting to update but having writer's block and many other things. My parents are also under the impression that I have some kind of body dysmorphia because I can't bear to look at my own body or face, which can make it quite difficult to get through the day. I'm currently on 40 mg of Fluoxetine a day (anti-depressants, two 20mg pills a day). I think it's important to also mention that I'm at the point where I have to keep my interests under lock-and-key because I'm scared of being judged for them: these include Hotel T, Toy Story and many other things, for example. To make matters worse, I am no longer seeing my counsellor weekly (or at all for that matter) and the lack of support from her has definitely made me feel much more down.**

**I want to thank all of you who have been supportive either of me or of my work over the past years: I'm trying hard to become a better writer and keep posting updates, but sometimes it's just too much and I have to go away for a little while to calm down.**


	3. The Age-Old Question

**Alright, I would like to just state this for the record now:**

**This story is really only about the pregnancy stages of them having kids - I am planning another story full of one-shots (about Hotel T in general but mainly focusing on Johnny/Mavis and maybe Dracula) that will deal with many topics, including the actual raising of the kids.**

**And yes, I changed the name of the fic: I just feel like this one is somewhat more appropriate for what kind of content the chapters provide.**

The Age-Old Question

Such a simple, closed question: the answer was one or the other - it shouldn't have been a reason to bother, really.

Boy or Girl?

First of all, for Johnny and Mavis this was somewhat of a tricky question anyway: vampires didn't show up on photos and so therefore didn't appear on sonograms either - so, really, they had no way of telling until the baby came out. Second of all, the question, 'Boy or Girl?' could also mean 'which do you prefer?', and, really, neither of them really minded.

But apparently, everyone else seemed to.

"I bet it's going to be a girl," An old gremlin lady cooed, patting Mavis' bump affectionately one night.

Her husband snorted. "With a kick like that? No, it's a boy, you wait and see!"

A passing yeti monster winked at Johnny. "Just what a man needs, right? A son to pass all of that knowledge onto; to play sports with! To go exploring with!"

"Clearly it's a girl," A fly argued, looking quite exhausted and annoyed. "If it was a boy then she'd be carrying lower down: that bump is too high for it to be a male baby. Still," He leaned his head closer to Johnny. "Always another go, I suppose."

"Well I actually-"

Eunice happened to pass down the corridor at that moment and immediately joined the conversation. "It's a girl!" She proclaimed loudly, pulling Mavis into a protective embrace away from the other monsters. "And a girl is not a bad thing! I mean, with any luck she'll look just like her mother! No offence, Johnny!"

"None taken," He shrugged.

Mavis pulled herself out of the flesh-golem's embrace and rolled her eyes at everyone. "We don't know what it is yet," She stressed for what felt like the millionth time in the past few months. "And we won't know until the end of October - a whole four and a half months away! Besides, we don't really mind if it's a boy or girl," Here looked at her husband, who grinned and nodded in agreement. "As long as they're healthy and all that...does it matter?"

At first Dracula had seemed to share this attitude - he even took to glaring at any guests he caught asking the couple about the gender...oh, and don't even get him started on the whole incident of when monster reporters had come to ask! Geesh, and he'd thought he and Martha had it bad before Mavis arrived!

But it appeared that, deep down, even the infamous Count Dracula couldn't help but wonder.

"Imagine if it's a girl!" He sighed blissfully, smiling to himself as he relaxed one evening. "Just like my little Mavy."

"Uhh...Dude?" Johnny said suddenly, waving his arms at his father-in-law. "I'm kinda sitting right here."

The Count just gave a small laugh. "Of course, of course..." But he still continued to smile to himself stupidly. "But surely you understand, Johnny; a baby girl! There really is nothing greater!"

Johnny stopped drinking his blood beater and blinked. "Wait...really?"

Dracula gave a nod and smiled knowingly at the former human. "Don't get me wrong, Johnny: a son would have been just as amazing! Someone to teach everything to, to play _real_ bat-tag with...but from the moment I knew my little blood orange was a girl, I knew that I wouldn't have had it any other way."

"Huh." Johnny seemed to be reflecting in thought, and moved his chair closer to Dracula's. "Sorry, it's just that in my family we only ever got boys...it's kinda like a curse," He joked. "All seven of us were boys; my brother Matt has a son - and probably another on the way - so a baby girl is kinda like...not something we've had in the family for a while. Actually..." He paused and counted in his head. "All babies in my family have been boys for five generations now - the only girls are, like, married into it."

The older vampire sent him a slightly funny look. "I see...so are you saying that the baby will be a boy for certain?"

"What? No!" Johnny quickly backtracked. "I mean, like, a girl would kinda be like a miracle!...I mean, not because it's impossible...a girl would be a miracle anyway!...A boy would be a miracle...A_ baby at all_ is a miracle!"

Dracula suddenly gave a chuckle and clapped his son-in-law on the shoulder. "I'm only kidding, Johnny! Don't worry; either is fine by me!"

"Oh...right. Heh..."

* * *

But, truthfully, it was starting to get to the parents-to-be as well; around the five month mark they had taken a trip to visit Johnny's side of the family (a last time before being tied down by parenthood, that was) - and it was clear that Johnny's family were just as eager to hear as the monsters in the hotel.

Of course, the moment Johnny and Mavis stepped foot in Johnny's parents' house Jean was hugging them tightly.

"Oh, it's so good to see you!" She breathed, hugging her son close to her and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "It's been too long...And Mavis! My, you look _wonderful_!"

Mavis laughed and hugged her mother-in-law tightly. "Thanks, I guess."

Jean eyed the growing baby bump with great interest. "May I...you know?" The vampire nodded, and Jean placed her hands on the bump as she grinned. "They're getting big," She commented, rubbing at the bulge affectionately. "How many more months?"

"About four."

"Mom, they're not even born yet - you don't need to spoil them just yet!" Johnny joked, although he too put a hand on his wife's stomach and rubbed with a smile on his face. "They've been kicking a ton, right Mavy? You should feel them during the day when we try sleeping - they go totally crazy!"

"And I suppose there's no chance of finding out the gender?" Jean questioned in a somewhat hesitant way, training her eyes on the two. "Because that would make buying the gifts a lot easier."

Mavis sighed and shook her head. "No, unfortunately. Trust me, it's driving us crazy too."

"Hmm...well, a surprise is always nice too." The woman took her hand away from the daughter-in-law's stomach and eyed her son with a beady eye. "Now, Johnny - I expect that you're looking after Mavis, correct? Because the last thing a pregnant woman needs, human or vampire, is to stress."

"Oh, trust me," Johnny snorted. "I've tried helping but she just gets moody and yells."

That particular comment had put him in 'the doghouse' for a few days.

* * *

"So?" Mavis asked one night, flopping next to her husband by the pool. Her bathing suit was stretched to its' limit to accommodate her growing baby bump, and it wouldn't be much longer until she wouldn't be able to wear it anymore. "Boy or girl?"

Johnny shrugged. "Are we making a bet here or talking about what we'd like?"

"What we'd like."

Johnny tilted his head back and watched the sky thoughtfully. "Dunno. I guess I've never really thought about it...I mean, as long as he or she is healthy," He added quickly at the look on his wife's face.

Mavis put her hand on her baby bump and started to stroke it in thought. "I guess. I'm not too picky."

"It'd be cool if it was a girl though," Johnny mused, chuckling slightly to himself. "It'd be the first girl born in my family for years...I mean, Matt and his wife told me they're expecting another boy, and then there's me and all my brothers..."

"Not because you want a girl then?" Mavis teased.

"It's not that," The red-head muttered quickly. "I was just saying. Look, either is awesome with me – as long as they're not deformed or anything."

"I highly doubt they will be," The female vampire said, amused. Johnny just shrugged again – after all, they weren't going to scans or anything to check. "Anyway, you never told me which one you'd actually like better."

Her husband looked down at the pool, kicking his feet in the water. "I _did_ tell you. I don't care...Hold on!" He looked up and smirked at her. "You didn't say which one _you_'d prefer...Which one would_ you_ like?"

Mavis smiled slightly to herself. "Honestly? I kind of agree with you...but if I _could_ choose," She continued quickly when her husband opened his mouth to protest. "I'd probably choose a girl."

Johnny stared at her for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face. "Why?"

Mavis shrugged. "I don't know. I just...I think it'd be nice to have a daughter to play with and see grow up. I mean, you can talk to them properly, gossip a little when they get older...Boys are great, don't get me wrong, but I'd just prefer having a baby girl."

There was a short silence between them; a couple of the younger wolf pups jumped in the pool, splashing the two vampires with drops of water but neither of them said anything. "I think I agree with you," Johnny finally said, flashing her a smile and showing off his fangs. "A girl sounds adorable."

"Come on," Mavis decided, pushing herself forwards and into the pool. "Auntie Wanda told me that swimming is good for when you're pregnant – maybe it'll relax the baby so that they kick some more for us."

Johnny slipped into the pool after his wife eagerly, grinning and chasing after her in the warm water.

* * *

Dracula had been standing with Frank, Wayne, Murray and Griffin outside of his daughter's room for hours now - he desperately wanted to be inside there with his baby girl, to try and stop her from screaming; he would have done just that if his friends hadn't stopped him immediately.

"Of course she's in pain," Griffin commented, probably rolling his eyes slightly at his friend. "It's a baby."

"I'm sure Martha was like this when she had Mavis," Wayne commented, scratching his ear a little; he'd left his eldest children in charge of the younger ones by the pool. Whether the pups stayed behaved was an entirely different matter, but right now he had to be there for his friend. "I mean, Wanda wasn't too different - the screaming and pain goes away once the baby comes."

"She's a Dracula," Frank continued assuringly. "She'll be able to get control over it soon."

"Besides," Murray finished, putting a sandy arm around the Count. "She's got Johnny, right?"

Dracula pushed the mummy's arm off of him with an unpleasant look on his face. "I know - that is what I'm worried about."

There was no more time for assurances, because Mavis could be heard letting out one last cry - this cry was then replaced immediately by the sound of a newborn crying loudly as it entered the world. Dracula shot upwards, eyes widening as he listened. "It's...It's over..."

"Congrats, Drac!" Frank bellowed cheerfully, slapping him on the back hard and nearly sending him flying. "Hard to believe you're a Grandpa, huh?"

"Geez...that makes _me_ feel old," Griffin muttered in distaste. "Still, Congratulations buddy! What do guys you think it is?"

Murray rubbed his hands together and grinned. "I bet on it being a boy; if I win this, I'll be able to get the upgrade on my pyramid!"

"Who cares about your pyramid?" Wayne asked eagerly. "If it's a girl then I can go on an extended vacation! No kids, no work..."

Griffin gave a snort. "If it's a boy, I'm using the money to go abroad; I've gotten so pale recently..."

Dracula blinked: strangely, he hadn't actually asked himself the question on the gender at that moment, more focused on making sure that everything had gone smoothly. "Well I-"

"C'mon, guys," Frank started, rolling his eyes. "Let's be serious here...it's got to be a girl! Women don't get _that_ big if they're having boys!"

"You can't tell just from the size of a stomach!" Murray argued.

Wayne sent him a sharp look. "You probably could, especially since it's only one baby."

"It's a boy."

"Girl."

"Boy!"

"Girl!"

**_"Alright_**!" Dracula snapped irritably, silencing his friends immediately. "Enough already! Someone from inside that room will come out and tell us soon, okay? So stop all of this..." He paused and then narrowed his eyes. "Hold on: you were betting on the gender of my grandchild?"

As if right on cue, the door to Room 174 opened; Johnny stepped out, still dressed in pyjamas and looking exhausted - but there was suddenly something different about him, at least to Dracula. He was holding himself taller, much taller, instead of slouching, and the happy-go-lucky grin on his face seemed to have been multiplied by a hundred as he looked around at the group of monsters.

Good Grief, Dracula thought to himself: this young man - someone whom he had tried to get rid of at first, a somewhat immature and way-too laid-back young man who had married his daughter - was a _father_.

Johnny's eyes lit up and he grinned even wider at his friends; even without the question being asked, he knew what to say.

"It's a girl."


	4. The Inbetween Times

The Inbetween Times

Most people - and monsters - were quite under the impression that once you had a baby, having more was a piece of cake; that any future pregnancy was now a piece of cake.

In actual fact, it's somewhat more difficult - especially so if you were a vampire that went by the name of Johnny.

He loved kids - honestly, he did - but pregnancy wasn't exactly easy on him; the first time Mavis had been pregnant...well, sure, she had gotten moody and had cramps...and oh yeah, there were the weird cravings! Boy, did he remember those nights! But now that it was the second time...

Lucy had been two months shy of her thirteenth birthday (and looking no older than a human toddler, Johnny noted) when Mavis broke the news to her husband at the end of August; the first thing that he had done when he'd found out was start yelling and jumping around - clearly, he hadn't grown up all that much over the years, and was still a child himself at heart.

But then the pregnancy _really_ kicked in.

Along with the nightly routines of feeding, cleaning and bathing the child they already had, the two vampires were now also having to deal with side effects of the second pregnancy: this included Mavis waking up with cravings halfway through the day when the sun was still out, and Johnny waking early in the evening before the sun had set to Mavis suffering from 'morning' sickness.

And yet, that wasn't the worst of it.

The words 'I think there's something wrong' are never a good thing to hear - it's even worse when they come from someone close to you, and it's the_ worst_ when the person talking to you is your worried pregnant wife.

One could easily understand why Johnny immediately stiffened up, eyes wide with worry as he looked at Mavis when he heard this sentence come out of her mouth. Lucy didn't even look up, blissfully unaware that her father was distracted from their game. "What? You mean with the baby?"

Mavis looked away, blue eyes trained on their small daughter on the floor. "I think so."

"Well...what makes you think that?" The red-head asked, trying to relax a little - if something _was_ wrong (and he severely hoped it wasn't) then he needed to try and remain calm for both himself and his wife.

"I just...I feel so ill," The dark-haired vampire muttered, woozily lowering herself onto a chair. Her hands rested on top of her swollen stomach, stroking it worriedly. "More ill then I did before...I mean, I shouldn't be throwing up still...and my stomach just _hurts_."

Johnny frowned to himself, unsure of what to do. Lucy looked between her two parents, picking up on the slight tension in the conversation, and reached her arms out impatiently for one of her parents to pick her up. "Cuddle?" She requested, blinking her wide blue eyes hopefully. Johnny reached over and did so before standing, knowing that Mavis properly wouldn't want to try standing up yet, what with the pregnancy and such.

"I think we need to call your Dad," He decided slowly, thinking hard. "Or is there a monster doctor we can go to? I don't think a human one would...err...quite understand as well."

"I guess there is," She murmured, sighing slightly. "There's probably a nurse or someone at the hotel that we could ask..."

"Or Wanda. She's had, like, tons of kids," Johnny added helpfully, just as his daughter decided it would be fun to start tugging at his hair. "Ow! Ow! Ow! You've got quite a - ow! - strong grip there! Ow!"

Lucy just giggled loudly, pulling even harder.

"I know it's messy," He managed, sending her a jokey grin. "But you don't need to - ow! - try to pull it all out, missy!"

"Come play?" She requested, her grip loosening slightly.

Knowing it was the only way to stop her from pulling out every hair on his head, Johnny nodded quickly - he needed to finish this conversation with Mavis anyway. "Yeah! Just give me a sec, alright?"

He put Lucy down on the floor and she crawled away to prepare for the future play session. Parenting duties put on hold for now, Johnny turned back to Mavis and sat down opposite her in another chair. She looked like she was about to burst into tears, and he gave her a grin to try and cheer her up. "Don't worry about it," He said soothingly, reaching out and grabbing her hand in his; he squeezed it tightly, hoping that some of his hopefulness and optimism would rub off on her. "Seriously - go and take a nap. You're probably just tired or something - I mean, we've got Lucy already, and she's definitely no angel..."

"Maybe you're right," Mavis agreed, trying to smile but instead showing a grimace instead.

Johnny helped her stand up, careful as he could be, and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I'll call Wanda at some point," He promised her assuringly. "Just in case. But it's probably just stress or something, so don't worry, Mavy. Worry is bad for both you and the baby, remember?"

"I know," She said, rolling her eyes slightly at her husband. "You keep on saying that, Mister Expert."

"I had three little brothers growing up," He defended. "I just know...like I know everything will be okay now. Now, go get some rest before you collapse or something."

Of course he wasn't exactly one hundred percent sure that everything would be okay - he wasn't a doctor, after all, and he could barely remember his brothers being born besides a few scraps of shaky memories. But, as he often thought to himself, a little optimism wouldn't hurt, especially in this case; if it calmed Mavis down even a little bit, then it would be doing some good for her and their baby.

"Johnny? I think our daughter's getting impatient."

Johnny snapped out of his thoughts and nodded; he could put aside all bad thoughts for now and play with their daughter for a little while. It wouldn't hurt to put off the phone call an hour or so, especially since distracting Lucy would hopefully take some pressure off of Mavis. "On it! Now, go and rest before I have to force you."

Luckily, Johnny had been right when he'd said everything would be okay - although the possibility of this prediction being wrong had worried the couple enough to contact not just Wanda but also Dracula, Johnny's mother and a monster doctor who'd been staying at the hotel for a few weeks. During the end of February their second baby was born - this time a son who they named Jack.

"Holy crap," Johnny muttered a couple of hours after the second baby had been born. "Mavis...we have kids...as in, like, more than one. _Kids,_" He repeated, stressing the 's' on the end of the word.

"You know, I do have eyes," Mavis muttered, rolling her eyes tiredly - but she was too blissful to feel completely annoyed.

Johnny grinned as he looked down at their son in his arms. "Aww man...Hey! He got lucky - he got your hair and not mine!" He ruffled the tiny tufts of hair softly with his finger, careful not to disturb the baby. "So...one boy and one girl. Pretty good, right?"

"Very even," Mavis agreed amusedly. "Very...perfect. Does this mean that I'm done with the whole pregnancy thing, or...? Not that I hated it or anything, but...it was a pain in the ass."

Johnny paused and shrugged; while he did indeed love having a family, he was in no way prepared to have seven kids like his parents had. "Well...I guess so, for the moment at least. I mean, we've got two cute kids who are perfect...heck, everything's perfect! Why ruin it, right?" He smiled at his wife happily. "Nah, Mavis. I think we're good."

* * *

"So...I guess now would be a good time to say that I'm pregnant."

Johnny, being from a large family, had barely blinked when she'd blurted it out one morning before they went to sleep - although when he spoke he did seem kinda surprised. "Again? Well, I totally didn't see that coming..."

Mavis was sure she would have blushed at his comment if she could have. "Yeah. So...another baby."

"Another couple of decades of crying and screaming," Johnny joked, giving her an easy grin. "I just didn't think there'd be such a big age gap if we had another one, you know?" Although, having said that, there was about fifteen (human) years between his eldest brother and his youngest one, which was pretty big for humans - he still didn't know what the vampire equivalent would be. "You're happy, right?"

Mavis nodded. "Of course! I mean, it does mean we have to put off traveling again for a while...but we could probably go on holiday next year anyway, so it's not that big a deal. You?"

"Mavy, I grew up with six brothers - three kids aren't even half of that," He laughed, eyes bright all of a sudden. Something told him he wouldn't be sleeping much that day, and he doubted Mavis would as well after such great news. "I guess there's only one thing for it now..."

"I'm not betting on the gender of the baby!" Mavis couldn't help but roll her eyes at such a suggestion. "I mean, does it really matter?"

"No," Johnny amended quickly, knowing now that because his wife was pregnant he had to be extra careful not to annoy her. "Of course not. But it's still fun to do, you know?"

She didn't have to know about the betting he'd done with her Uncles at the hotel - it was all a bit of fun between monsters.

During the months that followed, this pregnancy proved to be surprisingly easy really; maybe it was because Lucy and Jack were that much older that they didn't need constant looking after (although, Jack did sulk a lot whenever the baby was mentioned), and so there was only really one issue that bugged the couple until their newest child arrived.

"We need a name," Mavis stated, nudging Johnny to stop him from falling asleep. "Come on, Johnny! You're not getting out of it that easily!"

He gave a groan but opened his eyes anyway. "Alright, fine...which are we gonna do first? Boy or Girl names?"

Since neither of them had any idea on any names, regardless of gender, they decided to flip a coin; it landed heads, and so they pondered over boys' names first.

"Well...we _could_ use Joseph," Mavis suggested tentatively, cautious not to upset Johnny. "You know, after your Dad?"

The mention of his late father, who had passed away a few decades ago, made the red-head feel somewhat nostalgic. "Hmm...I guess so. Seems kinda weird for a vampire baby though...besides, it's kinda cheesy to name after a dead relative."

"That's true," Mavis agreed, nodding her head - that was why they had made 'Martha' Lucy's middle name instead of her first one. "Alright, let's forget about boys' names then; how about girls names? I kinda like Alice, after Alice in Wonderland...although, that is kind of a weird story..."

Suddenly, Johnny shot up in the bed and started to grin. "Hey! I've got one!"

Before she could ask, she felt the baby kick her and gave a wince. "Ow."

Johnny dropped back down into a laying down position and put a hand on his wife's baby bump with a soft look in his face. "Okay, kiddo! No need to get so excited - you might not even be called this, so stop trying to bruise your Mommy."

"Well, what's the name?" Mavis asked curiously.

The red-head smiled triumphantly. "Mina."

"Mina?"

"Yeah. I was re-reading _Dracula_ by Bram Stoker - you know, just 'cause it's so different from how your Dad actually is that it's kinda funny - and it's the name of one of the main characters," He explained excitedly, speaking so quickly that it was becoming slightly difficult to figure out what he was saying. "Anyway, I looked it up, just to see, and it's perfect!"

Mavis didn't look sure. "Perfect? Really?"

"I think it's perfect," He amended, snuggling up so that there was no room between them anymore; if the baby kicked, then he'd be able to feel their movements immediately, just the way he liked it. "It means 'love', Mavy - literally! How cool is that?"

Admittedly, it did seem rather cute, and it was starting to grow on Mavis more and more. "Alright," She agreed, giving a small nod. "If it's a girl, then it's Mina. Now all we have to do is sort out a boy's name."

Johnny gave a groan and moved away, flopping into his pillow: at the rate this was going, the baby was going to have to be a girl or go nameless.

**Please leave reviews! I'm trying to improve my writing, so...feedback is appreciated! (Not flames, constructive feedback!)**


	5. Old

Old

Having children meant one thing - yes, you weren't exactly a young teenager anymore but you weren't by any means old: you were actually pretty young still, considering how long a life span lasts.

The word 'grandchildren', however, told a completely different story.

"Mavy, I'm not old enough to be a grandpa!" Johnny whined, pouting slightly. "I mean, I'm only...how old am I now?"

"Well, do I look like a grandma to you?" Mavis retorted, staring into the depths of the vanity mirror deeply - all for nought considering she didn't even have a reflection. "I mean, sure, I've had a grey hair or two but...but I'm not that old!"

These reactions were, of course, brought on by the news that their eldest, Lucy (now grown up herself and married) was having a baby of her own; the news had surprised many of those in the family - but none more so than their youngest child, Lily.

Oh Lily. She couldn't be blamed for reacting so badly: after all, she _was_ a human and aging quicker than the rest of them - a side effect of the difficult pregnancy that Mavis had endured twenty-nine years prior to the current time. Another unfortunate side effect had been that Lily had been left completely and utterly infertile, forever shattering her dreams of becoming a mother and living a somewhat normal life while she could.

The thought of how unhappy she'd been that afternoon made Mavis sigh and sit back onto the bed beside her husband. "I hope Lily will be okay."

Johnny frowned at the change in subject but gave a tiny, guilty nod. "Huh. Well...yeah, she probably will be, right? I mean, she's gonna be an aunt - that's pretty cool! At least she'll get to be around kids..."

"Being an aunt and being a mother are completely different things," His wife pointed out, shaking her head. "Sure, she'll love this baby...but it won't be _hers_. It's her sister's."

She had a point - Johnny had been an uncle to his older brother's sons before becoming a father, and he had to admit that it _was_ very different; don't get him wrong, he had loved his nephews and adored playing with them...but then having a daughter of his own to play with, knowing that she was _his_ daughter - half of him and half of Mavis in one tiny person - was by far the greatest feeling he'd ever experienced.

Silently his heart went out for their youngest daughter, and he wished that there was something he could do to help her out.

"Great, now I feel sad about Lils _and_ old because I'm gonna be a grandpa!" Johnny groaned, letting his head fall backwards to his pillow - except he'd seriously misjudged where his pillow was and ended up hitting the back of his head off of the headboard. "OW!"

Mavis ignored this last part and continued to dwell on her thoughts for the time being. "I can't believe it; I don't feel like I'm ready to be a grandma. I mean, I still can't believe that I'm so old that we have kids, let alone _grandchildren_."

Ignoring the throbbing in the back of his skull, Johnny sat up and sighed. "Yeah...although, you gotta admit, it's something to look forward to. Heh, apart from the whole being old thing, I think being a grandpa might be pretty cool!"

However, she didn't look too sure and instead turned to face him seriously. "Johnny? Do you still think...well...that I'm attractive?"

Johnny blinked at her, as if unable to believe his ears. "What?"

"Are you still...you know..." If she could blush, this would have been one of the times that she probably would have. "Attracted to me? Like, do you..._desire_ me?"

That sounded so wrong coming out of her mouth that she had to try very hard to resist the urge to face-palm herself.

Her husband grabbed her hands in his and sent her a look that implied he thought she was slightly crazy for asking. "Yeah!" He agreed enthusiastically, nodding to prove his point. "What are you, nuts?! Just 'cause we're not in our one-hundreds anymore it doesn't mean that you're not beautiful!" Here he moved closer and looked at her seriously. "Do I need to show you how much I love you? 'Cause I'm totally up for that..."

"Maybe later," Mavis gave in, looking somewhat brighter than she had moments ago. "We're still talking about grandchildren right now."

Johnny nodded and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "Later," He agreed, voice slightly lower and eyes dilated. "So...grandchildren... Yeah, I'm looking forward to that; grandchildren are awesome, you know? You can play with them and do all the fun stuff - and at the end of the day, you don't have to do all of the parenting stuff, like diaper-changes."

"You said the same thing about being an uncle," She reminded him, smirking just a little to herself. "And look how many diapers you had to change then."

"Still, it's gonna be great!" He repeated, grabbing his wife's shoulders and grinning widely. "C'mon, Mavy: you've gotta be excited!"

"Well, yes," Mavis agreed half-heartedly, giving a slight nod of the head. "I'm really happy for Lu and Freddie, I really am. I just...can't believe it! Seems like only yesterday we were teaching her to fly, and now she's having kids of her own."

"Yeah...although," The red-head's smile slipped slightly. "I still have my doubts about that Freddie kid..."

The vampiress lightly slapped his shoulder and rolled her eyes in annoyance. "You are just like my Dad, I swear! Freddie's a great vampire - you just don't like him because he's married to our daughter! And don't start going on about how old they were when they met," She added when he opened his mouth to object. "Lucy has always been very smart; a night-dreamer, perhaps, but smart."

Being compared to Count Dracula - who really was starting to get on quite a bit as both a grandfather and future great-grandfather - made Johnny feel old again, and he let out a grumble. "Alright, you've got a point I guess...Hey!" He brightened up suddenly. "What do you think?"

Mavis gave him a look, eyebrow raised curiously. "What do I think about what?"

"If the baby is gonna be a girl or a boy, duh!"

"You are _not_ going to start betting on the genders again!" Mavis said, looking quite outraged. "It was bad enough to do it with our kids, let alone _their_ kids!"

It didn't matter what she said though - once his heart was set on it, there was no changing his mind.

* * *

Valentine's Day was, in short, miserable that year.

"I love Lucy, I really do," Johnny muttered, looking rather exhausted as he and Mavis prepared to go to bed for the day. "But she's not all that great when she's pregnant."

Mavis gave a small nod, looking equally tired out. "Poor Lucy; she looks about ready to burst. It can't be easy for her, being that large; it means she's stuck at home, unable to fly, and always getting back aches. I remember that, and it's not fun."

"I'm actually feeling kind of sorry for that Freddie kid," The red-head announced, giving a large yawn and flopping into bed. "He's not doing much better than she is; he's getting glared at, and he keeps breaking stuff every five minutes."

"Poor Freddie," Mavis agreed sympathetically. "He just doesn't want Lu to stress herself out, so he's trying to do everything for her...although he's just stressing her out _more_ by breaking everything in sight."

Johnny rolled over to look at Mavis and put an arm around her. "Mavy? Valentine's Day is officially my least favourite day of the year right now."

"It hasn't been very romantic," She sighed, relaxing in his embrace. "Everything we planned went to waste, didn't it?"

"Tried to have a nice calm evening by the pool; Freddie slips and falls in trying to help our daughter get out properly with her bump, and the life-guard ends up having to drain the pool to get him out," Johnny recounted miserably. "Our romantic dinner was ruined by _all_ of our kids; Mina coming to tell us that Jack had pulled her braids, and then Jack turning up and stealing her doll... What did he do with it anyway?"

Mavis gave a small smile, despite the situation. "He chopped off it's head because Mina stole a picture he had of some siren girl he saw - someone he had a crush on."

Her husband sighed. "Yeah, that's right. Then Lily and Damien started arguing right across the hall, which disturbed, like, everyone...and _then_ Lucy walked in and completely killed the mood with that look on her face..."

"In all fairness, she's pregnant," Mavis pointed out. "She's got to be really tired, Johnny; it's only natural."

"Well, it's her own fault for getting pregnant," He muttered. At the look his wife gave him, he back-tracked quickly. "Aw, come on! It is!"

Mavis was too shattered to even send him _that_ look for very long and instead shut her eyes in the hopes of getting some sleep. "This is our hotel trip for the month ruined," She mumbled.

"Worst Valentine's Day ever," Johnny agreed, also closing his eyes as he snuggled into her.

It seemed like only five minutes later that there was an urgent knocking on the door of Room 174, waking the two vampires from their slumbers.

Mavis gave a small groan and shoved Johnny off of her. "You go get it. It's probably Mina."

Right on cue, there was another series of knock on the door. "Mom! Dad!"

"Why do I have to go?" Johnny complained, pulling the covers over himself tightly. "You're the one that had the kids."

Even with his eyes shut, he could _feel_ the intensity of the glare she was giving him at that moment. "_You're_ the one that got me pregnant in the first place; go and do it."

It didn't seem fair to Johnny, but he didn't want to have a fight with Mavis, not at this time in the day when he was meant to be sleeping, so he stood up to answer the knocks on the door just for the sake of being able to sleep afterwards.

"Alright, Mina," He mumbled as he opened the door, blinking down at his daughter blearily. "What's the big deal? It's late, and you should be asleep-"

"Lucy went into labour!" Mina interrupted breathlessly.

Mavis was by the door in a second, and both of the adult vampires seemed to have woken up completely by those four words. "What? How do you know?" She asked hurriedly.

"I couldn't sleep," Mina started quickly, bouncing on her feet. "So I went to Lucy's room to see if she could braid by hair me - Lily and Damien must have been asleep already, 'cause when I went to their room they didn't answer - and she couldn't sleep either so she said she'd help me...oh, and Freddie held my doll for me..." She held up her still-headless doll for her parents to see. "Anyway, we were talking and Lucy suddenly started to get pains in her stomach...she's having contractions! The baby's coming!"

"Holy crap!" Johnny exclaimed, looking quite freaked out all of a sudden as he turned to look at Mavis. "What do we do?"

She rolled her eyes and moved to push past him to the door. "What else are we going to do? We're going to go and help her!"

"We can't go in there while she's having the baby," Johnny said, looking appalled at the suggestion. "Besides, no offence to her, but I don't...really...want...to go in there...and see it."

"Me neither," Mina agreed, pulling a face. "Can't we just sit outside and wait like normal monsters?"

A hundred and thirty-two years prior, Dracula and his friends had waited outside while Johnny and Mavis had their first baby - and now it was their turn to wait while their daughter had her baby. They, along with Mina, were shortly joined as the afternoon went on by Jack, Damien, Freddie's Uncle Al, who worked down in the kitchens of the hotel, and Dracula - Lily was, as predicted, absent from the gathering.

Since waiting for a baby to arrive took up to hours of patience, Jack and Mina began to continue the argument they'd been having for the past nine months.

"It's a boy," Jack stated.

Mina shot him a glare. "It's a girl."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Mina, I know what I'm talking about - it's gonna be a boy."

"Well, you're wrong," Mina muttered coldly, grip tightening on her doll. "It's going to be a girl."

Damien hesitantly leaned over to the two of them. "Err...can I say some-?"

"Boy."

"Girl."

The blonde flopped back in his seat. "Never mind."

Mavis just shook her head at them. "To think; Jack is nearly a hundred and nineteen, and Mina is eighty-nine...and they're actually arguing over this."

Uncle Al just shrugged. "Kids will be kids - plus, I suppose it passes the time."

"Do you want me to chop off any more heads of your dolls?" Jack threatened.

Mina just smirked unblinkingly at her older brother. "Joke's on you, Jack: I actually kinda like their heads being cut off. It's like having my own little set of Henry the Eighth's wives as dolls." She lifted the one she had with her up. "She _used _to be called Marie, but now I might call her Anne Boleyn."

Johnny looked between the two of them, his expression somewhat disturbed as he leaned over to talk to Mavis beside him. "Mavis? We have the weirdest kids ever..."

"Well, it makes them happy," She reminded him.

The red-head gave an understanding nod. "Huh. Guess so."

Luckily the wait only lasted another couple of hours or so until eight o'clock that evening - and then it was all over.

Freddie came bursting out through the bedroom door, tripping on a rug in the corridor; Mina, knowing what to expect, stood up and managed to steady him before he could fall to the floor easily.

"Heh...thanks, lil' bat!" He thanked, straightening up and looking around at everyone with a grin.

Uncle Al leaned forwards in his seat. "Freddo, what news?"

"Yeah, Freddie," Mina added in. "What is it?"

There was a long pregnant pause where everyone stared at Freddie in anticipation, waiting for him to break the tension in the corridor.

"It's a baby!" Freddie announced stupidly.

Dracula slapped a hand over his face while Johnny tried unsuccessfully to hide his laughter, only for Mavis to nudge him (although, judging by the smirk on her face, she was also highly amused). Damien let out a snort and covered his mouth with his hands to hide his own chuckles, and Mina gave a heavy sigh at her friend's obliviousness.

Jack meanwhile just rolled his eyes. "No, you idiot: is the baby a boy or a girl?"

"Oh!" Freddie paused. "Err...Let me check."

As he hurried back into the room, Johnny grinned at everyone. "Well...I gotta give it to this kid: he doesn't even care what the baby is, so long as it's a baby."

"As opposed to what?" Dracula retorted tiredly, raising an eyebrow at his son-in-law. "A dinosaur? A hearse perhaps?"

Jack gave a large grin. "Well, in Lucy's case it really could have been judging by the size of that bump."

"And you wonder why you don't have a girlfriend yet," Mina said bluntly, sitting back down in her chair and folding her hands together on top of the doll in her lap. "Always so charming, Jack."

Since everyone else was distracted Johnny looked at Mavis and took her hand, starting to slowly smile at her. "Mavis? I'm a grandpa now."

"And I'm a grandma," Mavis realized, pretending to be horrified to try and make the situation slightly less sad - after all, this was good news. "Rabies...I feel old..._we_'re getting old."

"Nah," Johnny disagreed, resting his head against hers. "We're not old just yet - not inside, anyway."

**So...fluffy fluff fluff. :p I feel in a good mood right now, so this is the result. **

**I got my GCSE results back on Thursday, and here they are for anyone interested (if not, just skip the following list):**

**Media Studies (Double Award): BB  
French: B  
Drama: C  
English Literature: A  
English Language: A*  
Mathematics: A  
History: A  
Media Studies (Single Award): B  
Core Science: A  
Additional Science: B**

**I'm so proud of myself (apart from the Drama, which kinda sucks considering I love it)! So now I'm officially off to college since I got a minimum of 5 C-A* grades, and I'm so thrilled! XD No more school and uniforms!**

**Like I said, I was in a good mood (it's been a great week) so I decided to write something happy (and overly fluffy). I'm also on a bit of a sugar rush, and since my sister's birthday was recently and I ended up with some money (don't ask) I've been watching The Addams Family TV Shows and movies. I'm not sure how many Addams Family Values references I've put in, but I know that it's in there somewhere.**

**Anyway, please leave reviews - I live off of them! Plus, if you have any ideas about what you might like to see, prompt them to me and I'll see what I can do!**


	6. Baby Bats

Baby Bats

"Poor Mina," Mavis observed.

Johnny gave a nod; the two were watching their daughter playing with her dolls in the hallway unenthusiastically from the doorway, and he couldn't help but agree with this statement. "She's gotta be lonely," He guessed. "I mean, Lucy left, then Lily...and now even Jack's left too. She must be feeling pretty left out."

Her siblings were all grown-up before she was: Lucy was married with a kid already and lived a couple of miles away, Lily - now thirty - also married and living a short distance away, and now Jack had gone as well. Mina was, in short, the only child left.

And she looked miserable about it.

"It sucks that she doesn't have someone to be around," Mavis continued. "I mean, sure, she's been close with a few monsters - but that's the point: Freddie's with Lucy, Damien's with Lily, and most of her friends she makes at the hotel won't be back until the Summer."

"Yeah, but she has her dolls," Johnny pointed out.

His wife just shook her head. "Dolls aren't a living companion."

"Hmm...Hey!" The red-head grinned as an idea formed in his head. "I might have something we can do!"

"And?"

He grinned even wider. "Let's get a puppy, duh! A dog would make her feel way better!"

Mavis bit her lip unsurely. "Yes...but the thing about dogs is that sometimes they freak out around monsters. Remember that time on the beach in Portugal?"

"Oh," Johnny frowned slightly. "Right. But that was a big adult dog; a puppy would be a lot friendlier...plus, if it's a puppy then it could probably get used to...whatever it is about monsters that makes them freak."

"It's a great idea," Mavis assured him. "But maybe if we used a different pet instead? Something...smaller, so that Mina could keep it in her room and look after it herself. Something that she'd love to look after."

And then it hit them both like a freight train.

* * *

Mina raised an eyebrow at her parents and crossed her arms. "Are you both feeling okay? You're never this secretive... Ah, come on! Please tell me that you're not having _another_ baby!?"

Johnny gave an awkward cough and put an arm around her; she merely gazed up at him with a stony expression, clutching her headless doll under her arm seriously. "Well, guess it's only right that you know..." He took a deep breath and sent her a happy grin. "We got you a pet!"

Mina's mouth fell open in shock and she dropped her doll. "A _what?!_"

"A pet," Johnny repeated, bending to pick up the dropped toy.

"Do you want to meet him?" Mavis asked, smiling at Mina. Mina just nodded speechlessly, unable to comprehend what was going on. "Come on, he's waiting in the living room for us."

Neither Johnny or Mavis had had pets growing up - not exactly - and so it was both amusing and heart-warming to see their sixty-one year old daughter reacting to getting a pet of her own.

Mina put her doll on the couch and taking a step closer to the cage in front of her; it was small - but clean, she noted - and the latch was securely in place. She stopped in front of it and got down onto her knees to try and peer into it better: inside was a tiny black bat, rolling around in the cage while flexing its wings, and it opened its eyes drearily at Mina.

"He's beautiful," She cooed in awe, a smile lighting up her face. "Wait...is it a boy?"

"Oh, yeah," Johnny told her, nodding to her. "At least, we think so."

"We found him out in the forest," Mavis continued, looking somewhat sad. "His mother wasn't there, so we had a fly around to see if she was nearby...we found her a few miles away, and she'd been attacked by a wild animal."

"That's horrible," Mina stated, looking shocked. "You poor thing!" She tentatively pushed her finger through the bars of the cage towards the bat; he looked at it for a second before opening his mouth and giving her an affectionate nip with his tiny sharp teeth. "He likes me! Say, lil' fella, do you have a name?"

The bat blinked at her and wrapped his talons around her finger tightly before shutting his eyes.

"That's fine," She assured him. "I'll give you one. How about we name you...Edgar?"

Johnny blanched for a moment. "Edgar? What kind of name is Edgar?"

Mina looked at him over her shoulder icily. "_His_ name, Dad. I'm naming him Edgar after a poet I read about in Grandpa Drac's library because it sounds poetic and dignified." She turned back to her new pet and immediately melted. "How old is Edgar, Mom? Does he still need milk?"

"I'm not a bat expert," Mavis pointed out but decided to hazard a guess anyway. "He can't be any older than a month, so I'd say so."

The young vampire gave a final nod and stood to pick up her cage. "Thank You, guys!" She exclaimed, sending them small smiles. "He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - I promise that I'll look after him no matter what!"

"So...you like him?" Johnny checked - for him, bats weren't exactly the most normal pets. Then again, having said that, nothing had been particularly 'normal' in the human sense since becoming a monster.

Mina nodded. "Yes, of course. I love him already - don't I, Edgar?"

Edgar gave a small high-pitched noise from his cage in what could possibly have been agreement - it appeared that he was as taken with Mina as she was with him.

* * *

"Mom? Edgar's not home yet."

Mavis gave a frown and looked up from her magazine. "Isn't he? It's nearly sunrise - he's got to be tired by now."

Mina - who looked rather tearful and unlike her usual self - shook her head. "No. I let him out tonight first thing so that he could go for his usual fly and hunt some scorpions - he was meant to bring me one back!"

"Well, I'm sure that he's fine," Mavis tried to assure her; although, she was starting to worry just a bit. The bat was Mina's closest thing to a constant best friend, and she dreaded to think what her daughter would do if something happened to the bat.

The young vampire hesitated for a moment. "Mom? Could I not...maybe go for a quick fly? Just to find him-"

"Mina, it's not safe," The older vampire said immediately and firmly, putting down her magazine. "If he gets caught out in the Sun, it's not so bad for him - he'll get upset, sure, but he won't _burn_...you seem to forget that you've been burnt enough as it is."

Mina felt guilty all of a sudden but tried to shake it off. "But...But Edgar-!"

"He's probably curled up in a tree, sweetie."

Her daughter shook her head again. "What if something's happened to him, Mom? What if he got in a fight, o-or something attacked him? I can't just leave him out there on his own!"

"Well you can't just go out this late in the evening," Mavis retorted, but she appeared to be softening up all the same. "I'll tell you what; if he's not back by tomorrow evening then all of us will go out to look for him. Okay?"

But he didn't turn up the following evening, nor the evening after that; Edgar seemed to have vanished into thin air. Mina was inconsolable when he didn't return, and even more so when any and all searches for her beloved pet showed no results either. It broke Mavis and Johnny's hearts to see her so upset, and they could only hope that Edgar would come home soon.

And then, remarkably, he did.

A week had passed before Edgar flew in one day while they were sleeping; when Mina woke up and saw him perching by the window that night, she had let out an excited yell that woke up her parents from down the hall and nearly terrified her bat to death.

"Where have you been, huh?" Mina cooed, opening the door of his cage and helping him inside. "Don't do that again, Edgar, you scared us so much!"

And everything was normal again - until about five weeks later.

"Hey, Dad. Mom," Mina started, walking into the living room; she was holding Edgar's cage and frowning rather confusedly. "I think something's wrong with him."

"Wrong with him?" Mavis asked, raising an eyebrow.

Mina gave a solemn nod. "He's gotten...fat. And tired and weak. He won't move as much as he used to - he won't even fly around anymore."

Indeed, Edgar _did_ look rather round; he looked like a furry puffed-up baseball, if Johnny said so himself, and it was no wonder that Mina looked rather worried. "Huh," He said simply. "Maybe he's...got...bat flu or...something? Maybe?"

Meanwhile, the cogs in Mavis' head worked at an intense speed as she started to realize just what might be going on. "Johnny?" She asked slowly. "How sure are we that Edgar is a male bat?"

Mina frowned but Johnny's mouth fell open as it reached him too. "_No_... Edgar can't be a girl-bat... You said he was a boy."

"Well, I only got a quick look," The blue-eyed vampiress defended. "I didn't see you asking about it then."

"Hang on," Mina interrupted, looking somewhat shocked. "Are you saying that..._Edgar_...?"

It looked like a new arrival was on the way soon.


	7. Gomez

Gomez

Mina grew up too quickly for Johnny and Mavis' liking - it seemed like only months later she'd grown up and decided to start travelling, like her parents had done and told her about. Just like that, the couple were left alone - almost exactly like they had been before, except now they were of course much older.

"Well this is just great!" Johnny grumbled miserably as he flopped into bed that night. "I mean, Lucy's married with kids, Jack is pretty much a recluse, Mina is travelling...and Lily is...well, gone..."

"Jack is not a recluse," Mavis scolded, preferring to ignore the last point - it was still a rather sore topic between them, even all of these years later. "He just prefers to read instead of going out."

The red-head sighed and closed his eyes. "I feel old," He whined. "Like really old. Mavis, don't you realize?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "We've had four kids, two son-in-laws and three grandkids...That makes us _old_."

"We're not as old as Dad is," Mavis pointed out, as if somewhat in denial. "He's way older and doing okay. We have nothing to worry about."

Johnny gave a small sigh and looked up at his wife. "But we are old, Mavy - at least _older_. Like...remember the good ol' days? No kids, no problems...just the two of us, travelling the world and being in love..."

"Now the kids are a problem?"

"Nah, I didn't mean it like that," He added. "I just meant...when was the last time we actually had a week to ourselves without children, grandchildren or stuff? The last time that we got to be together without worrying if Jack had killed Mina, or if Lucy had snuck out again? And now..."

Now that he mentioned it, he did have somewhat of a point. Mavis shrugged to herself. "Now we're alone - years ago we would have killed for that, but now..."

"Now that they're all gone, it's empty," Johnny finished miserably, and Mavis could tell that he was somewhat unsure of what to do now that they didn't have the kids to run after. "Mavis, what did we do before the kids? I mean, apart from going around the world - we must have done something."

"We did," Mavis agreed, somewhat sly. "We watched movies, flew around outside...and of course there was the sex, which lead us to actually having kids..."

Johnny gave a slightly flustered smile. "Hehe, yeah...Good times..."

"Even the sex was different," His wife continued, enjoying herself as he became more and more embarrassed. "We could be...I dunno..._loud_, like as loud as possible, and...and it was spontaneous!"

"More often too," Johnny agreed, giving a slight nod. "Yeah, I guess you can't really be loud with four kids sleeping in the house; that probably would have been a giveaway." He paused for a moment. "Spontaneous?"

She gestured uselessly with her hands as she tried to explain. "Yeah; it wasn't planned, it was whenever. Once the kids came along, it kinda had to be planned to fit around them - feedings and all of that. Not to mention..." She stopped, ducking her head but smiling nonetheless as she said it. "Well, we weren't really _careful_ back then either."

"What're you talking about?" Johnny questioned, frowning slightly. "We used protection-"

"Most of the time," Mavis interrupted, smirking slightly and patting her stomach in memory. "After all, we ended up with Lucy at some point after that period, didn't we? Besides, that wasn't exactly what I meant..." When he continued to look clueless, she gave a small cough. "Remember the vase in the hotel room in Italy?"

_Oh._

Johnny gave a small splutter, and for a moment it looked liked he'd managed to blush. "But...I mean...that wasn't...you're the one who started that one!"

"Anyway," Mavis hurriedly said, changing the subject. "Back on the subject of Mina; she'll be back in January for her birthday - you know how she loves Dad's parties - so we'll see her then. And as for the rest of them..."

"Hmm...they'll either not speak to us for months or never leave us alone," Johnny agreed, nodding his head. "No in-between on that one, huh?"

* * *

When Mina had announced she was coming home, of course Mavis and Johnny had been thrilled; while seeing her grow up and be an independent monster made them proud, they really did prefer having her around. So it was with anticipation and excitement that the two found themselves with their granddaughter, Sam - who they had adopted into their family after the death of both Lily and Damien - waiting outside to finally see Mina again.

What they didn't expect was this.

"Mom, Dad! Hey, Sam! How you doing? Oh, right...Guys, this is Gomez!"

Johnny instantly felt sick; he'd become accustomed now to what daughters bringing boys - or men, as this case was - home meant, and the fact that this was _Mina_ only made it worse.

The man in front of them was older than Mina and quite a sight to behold; he was dressed in a red silk shirt and sensible trousers that looked both expensive and simple. He was grinning beneath a moustache, keen brown eyes bulging slightly - but not in a terribly unattractive way - and turned to look at Mina. "Ah, darling, I see where you get your good looks from."

Johnny opened his mouth. "Hang on a min-"

Mavis interrupted by elbowing him painfully in the side; clearly she was telling him to not say anything in front of Mina. "Hello, Gomez. It's nice to meet you."

"No, the pleasure is all mine," Gomez brushed off easily, taking a step forwards; he took Mavis' hand in his and gave it a small kiss in greeting. "Mina really does like to talk of you and your husband, you know; she thinks you're both terrific!"

Johnny glared at him with narrowed eyes. "Yeah, well...could you stop kissing her hand?!"

While his wife shot him a hard look, Gomez chuckled and stood up straight, putting an arm around Mina's waist. "You must be Johnny: Mina adores you! Apparently, from what I can tell, she thinks you're one of the best dads out there."

"She...she does?" The red-head tried not to sound or look so surprised when he trained his eyes on Mina.

"Oh yes," Gomez reiterated seriously, sending him a confident grin. "Never stops talking about you in particular..." He turned to Sam, who had remained surprisingly quiet throughout this. "And who's this little cutie?"

Sam put her hands on her hips and raised a blonde eyebrow at him - she was still rather wary around strangers, no matter how nice they seemed, thanks to her experiences in life. "I'm Sam," She introduced, staring straight up at him.

"One of my sisters adopted her years ago," Mina explained; her smile slipped for a moment as she leaned closer to the man next to her. "You know, Lily? The one I told you about?"

Gomez gave a small nod of understanding. "Ah. Well, Sam, it's nice to meet you too; you know, the first few times I met your Aunt here, she wouldn't stop going on about how much she was worried about you?"

"Worried?" Sam repeated doubtfully, turning her unsure gaze on Mina.

"You wouldn't believe it, but I can assure you it's true: she thought you'd be pretty lonely all on your own - not that your grandparents here aren't great company, of course."

The girl gave a small and rare smile. "Just so you know, Mina's not my aunt - and Mavis and Johnny aren't my Grandpa and Grandma: they're not like that to me." When he simply looked befuddled, she gave a small laugh. "They're my family but not like that...it's a really long story."

"So," Mavis started, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. "You know, I'd like to know how you two met."

Mina gave a small and knowing smirk. "I met Gomez in Puerto Rico - he's been living between there and the states for years - and he's travelling with me."

_Huh, maybe they're not...together...oh God, that even sounds wrong..._ Johnny thought. _Probably just travel buddies, I can live with tha-_

"Oh, our romance didn't begin nearly that simple," Gomez added. "I was engaged to a nice little water nymph up in New York - arranged marriage between families and all - and I went home for the weekend. I step off the plane and who is the ravishing beauty I run in to? This little minx!"

_A minx. I am going to kill him._

Mina didn't seem nearly as bothered as Johnny was by this comment. "You flatter me too much," She laughed, shaking her head.

"Anyway, just one look and I knew I was a goner," The moustachioed man continued grandly. "Wasn't easy breaking off the engagement - my parents weren't having that - so we-"

"Saw each other behind their backs?" Mavis asked, looking somewhat amused and...she looked like she was enjoying the story! "That's so romantic..."

Sam pulled a face to herself. "Eww," She whispered under her breath so no one could hear her.

_That a girl, Sam, _Johnny thought in agreement.

Gomez smiled at Mina lovingly. "Yes. In the end, I managed to break it off with the water nymph quite smoothly; turns out that she didn't want to live on land, and I didn't want to live in the water so we called it off. It all worked out quite well in the end, if I do say so myself."

"Yes, you did rather well," Mina agreed, brushing her hand against his face and raking her nails down his cheek affectionately before turning to her parents. "Did you know that Gomez comes from one of the richest monster family branches in America? He learnt all kinds of interesting things growing up; sword-fighting, playing musical instruments...he and his family even take part in charity events for orphaned monsters every year."

"Really?" Mavis asked, quite impressed; she couldn't help but look down at Sam, who had been 'orphaned' twice thanks to the unfairness in the world.

Gomez looked down modestly but smiled anyway. "We donate a few of our items to auctions, that kind of thing; last year I took a trip to Russia to help place some of the kids in new homes. Money and all that is great, but...well, there's nothing quite like the things I saw up there: the joy and love created in families, you know?"

"That's actually so amazing," Mavis stated, unable to believe it - she was unable to comprehend what such an experience would actually be like to get to watch first-hand. She imagined it would be amazing, but probably more so than she thought it would be.

"Hold on a minute," Johnny interrupted, giving the man in front of him a rather nasty look. "You were engaged? To another woman?"

Mavis and Mina both sent him rather cold and sharp glares while Gomez gave a nervous chuckle. "Yes, well...like I said, it'd been arranged by our parents - that still happens in old-fashioned families such as ours, you know. But as soon as I met your daughter, I knew that there was no way I could go through with it."

As the conversation continued and moved indoors, one thing was for certain: Johnny did _**not** _like this Gomez character.

* * *

"He's so...so..."

"Suave?" Mavis prompted, raising an eyebrow in a rather unimpressed way. "Sophisticated? Charming? Perhaps charitable?"

Johnny gave a small moan. "No!...Yes...But that's not the point! He's so...he's older! I mean...Mavy, he has a moustache! He's gotta be, like Lucy's age by now!"

"Hardly," Mavis shook her head; she understood that fathers were overprotective but this...this was ridiculous. "Besides, does it really matter? Mina's happy with him, that's clear, and he seems taken with her too."

"Of course he would," Johnny mumbled. "Young girl like her, travelling alone; she's like...like...prey! Prey for guys like that!"

The dark-haired vampire sat back against the headboard and watched him pace uninterestedly. "You know, you've said this about Freddie; you've said this about Damien, and now you're saying this about Gomez. Mina likes him, and as her parents the best we can do is accept that - besides, he seems like a nice guy. Very polite and friendly."

"He's...but..." The red-head spluttered, at a loss for words. "Mavis, he called her a '_minx_'! Do you get what that means?!" When she just continued to look at him coolly, he gave a small frustrated groan. "He basically said she was a tease! Our daughter!"

"And?" Mavis questioned, not quite understanding what the big deal was.

Johnny started to tug at a tuft in his hair anxiously. "He _likes_ her in _that_ way! Our daughter!...He thinks she's...she's..."

"So he thinks that she's attractive," Mavis dismissed. "Surely that's good, right? That he thinks she's attractive; that's usually a great starting point for a relationship, if you ask me."

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. "No! She's not old enough for that kind of thing, you know?" He shook his head to himself. "No, no...a minx is, like, flirty and...and _sexy_ and...and that's not Mina, okay?!"

Mavis suddenly understood what exactly was bothering him about this young man - and as much as she agreed, it definitely wasn't to the severity that Johnny was taking it to. "Look," She started slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Mina's an adult- she's not a little girl anymore, Johnny."

"I know," Johnny mumbled stupidly. "I know...but it's just...whenever I see her I just remember that little kid...you know, with the gap between her fangs, headless dolls and that Martha-bat with her all the time. Not a...'minx'."

"I know what you mean," Mavis said sincerely, resting her head on his shoulder. "I know that it's hard...you weren't this bad with Lucy or Lily, though."

She didn't have to say it for her to know - the look on his face said it all.

_But this is Mina._

Mina was the youngest, the baby of the family for the majority of her years, and though there neither of the parents had favourites when it came to their children, there was no denying the intensity of the father-daughter relationship between Johnny and Mina. The very thought of Mina - the baby in his eyes, their baby - being an adult, independent and - dare they say it - _sexual_ being was by far the most disturbing thing that had ever crossed their mind.

"She'll be fine," Mavis told him quietly. "To be honest, the way they were tonight, I think she has him hooked enough that he'd do anything for her."

"I hope you're right, Mavy," Johnny sighed, leaning into her embrace: _after all_, he added in his head, _that's the least she deserves._

**So...about the updates, college is more time-consuming that I anticipated, but I'm alive and so is this story!**

**Feel free to drop reviews!**


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